Electronic Gadgets Banned

Electronic Gadgets Banned on International Flights

UK has banned electronic gadgets on international flights from seven countries, following the similar ban in the US.

Canada and EU countries haven’t joined the ban so far. We remind that Donald Trump’s administration banned electronic gadgets aboard the flights from eight Middle Eastern and North African countries, including Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. The policy in question covers the international airlines only and only the cabin luggage.

In the UK ban will affect inbound flights from such Middle Eastern countries as: Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, Tunisia and Saudi Arabia and will be obligatory both for home and international carriers.

The home companies to put the new regulations in effect are:

British Airways

EasyJet

Jet2.com

Monarch

Thomas Cook

Thomson

But the international airlines will have to oblige the new regulations as well if they operate in the following airports:

Turkish Airlines

Pegasus Airways

Atlas-Global Airlines

Middle East Airlines

Egyptair

Royal Jordanian

Tunis Air

Saudia

Passengers aren’t allowed to have gadgets over the certain size in their cabin luggage. The cabin luggage ban covers all electronic items with built-in batteries and plugs, that are larger than 16cm long, 9.3cm wide or 1.5cm deep.

Laptops, tablets, phones, e-readers, cameras and portable DVD players should be left in the hold luggage that will be properly checked and packed. The medical equipment is excluded from the ban list, though. The info leaked, that ISIS is working over building the explosives and controls into gadgets and portables. So, passengers will have hand in not only their bottled drinks, perfumes and so on but also their e-friends.

Many aviation-security experts predict a mayhem in airports while passengers will be handing in their gadgets in the checked luggage. It will do hell to the airports logistics as well.

But the ban is mainly to appease the anxiety of John Citizen rather than to really improve the situation. After all, the 9/11 attack was done by pilots, not by passengers. And the terrorists got no bombs but only the planes as such. And most of terroristic attacks in America, France and UK were organized by the country residents, long-time residents who had jobs, houses, families. Then, most top gadgets are smaller than the size of the banned size, for instance, the iPhone 7 Plus measures 15.8cm x 7.8cm x 0.73 cm and Samsung Galaxy s7 Edge measures 15.9 x 7.6 x 0.7 mm. While the Kindle Paperwhite measures 16.9cm x 11.7cm x 0.91cm and thus is banned. But the Kindle has no powerful CPU and cannot be ‘flashed’ to feature any other OS than the one pre-installed by Amazon. Again, the smart watches will escape the ban certainly. They are way too smaller. But are very powerful and when paired with their smartphones can get an upper hand over a two-year old laptop.

The British authorities declared, the safety of British nationals will be the top priorities while the American ones skated over the direct questions why this ban was instigated in the first place. Also, no definite punishment is meant for passengers who will break the regulations. Whether they’ll be stopped from getting aboard until further investigation of the issue or should they pay a considerable fine remains unclear. It’s also unclear if the ban is obligatory for pilots and the crew.

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